The partnerships with Ukraine and five other EU partner countries Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Belarus are “not an instrument of enlargement policy”.
The EU is ready to accept the partner countries in their diversity. This is where Europe “clearly differs from Russia”. EU Council President Donald Tusk accused Russia of “destructive, aggressive and intimidating actions against its neighbors” with a view to the Ukraine conflict. Petro Poroshenko (left) speaks to Latvian President Andris Berzins. (Photo: AP) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko thanked the EU for its economic and political support. At the same time he accused Russia of using regular soldiers in the Donbass war zone.
There is evidence of this, he claimed. Russia rejects these allegations, and a statement is due to be adopted at the end of the summit this Friday condemning Russia as an aggressor. At the beginning there were heated discussions about the declaration. Countries such as Belarus and Armenia, which have good relations with Moscow, opposed plans to criticize Russia in the final declaration, while countries such as Ukraine and Georgia called on the European Union to give them clear perspectives on issues such as EU accession and visa exemption to give.
EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said that neither the former Soviet republics nor the European Union were ready for the Eastern partners to join. Merkel also defended the EU’s Eastern policy in a government statement in Berlin. “We must not raise false expectations that we cannot meet later,” she said of Ukraine’s hopes for EU membership soon. The partnerships with Ukraine and five other EU partner countries Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Belarus are “not an instrument of enlargement policy”. It is the fourth summit since the Eastern Partnership was established in 2009.
The program is intended to advance the democratization of the countries. The conflict with Russia over Ukraine weighs heavily on the project. Referring to Moscow, Merkel said: “The Eastern partnership is not directed against anyone, especially not against Russia.” Moscow accuses the EU of wanting to expand the West’s sphere of influence. At the same time, the Chancellor asked the Eastern partner countries to make additional efforts to reform. It also made visa simplifications dependent on this. In the margins of the summit, the latest state of the Greek financial crisis should also be discussed. Merkel wanted to meet the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and the French President François Hollande after the summit dinner.
EU Commission President Juncker emphasized that the Greece issue was not officially a topic of the summit in Riga. Source: ntv.de, ppo / dpa “Supporters of the pro-European alliance Acum demonstrate in front of the parliament in the Moldovan capital Chisinau. (Photo: imago images / ITAR-TASS) In Moldova, none of the parties received a clear majority in the parliamentary elections.https://123helpme.me/biology-essay-writing-service/ Since then, a bitter power struggle has raged, won by an unusual alliance of pro-Russian and pro-European forces. Their heavily rich opponent then leaves the country. Moldova has the powerful oligarch and Democratic Party leader Vladimir Plahotniuc left the country after the end of the power struggle after the new pro-European Prime Minister Maia Sandu threatened to bring Plahotniuc to justice, accusing him of trying to seize power. The Democratic Party had on Friday paved the way for a new government made up of pro-European and pro-Russian forces en freed and thus ended a days-long power struggle. “We will go into the opposition,” said Vice-Party Leader Vladimir Cebotari in a televised address. Vladimir Plahotniuc is said to be about 2 to 2.5 billion US dollars rich, which corresponds to about a third of Moldova’s GDP. ITAR-TASS) Plahotniuc left the country to stay with his family for a few days, according to his Democratic Party.
The media in Moldova had already speculated about the “disappearance” of the oligarch. The new head of government Maia Sandu from the pro-European alliance Acum had previously said that Plahotniuc would have to “answer to the courts”. She accused the oligarch of various crimes, including trying to seize power. The former Soviet republic, located between Romania and Ukraine, has been in a political crisis since the parliamentary elections in February. Neither party was able to achieve a clear majority in the election. Last Friday, the Constitutional Court finally ordered the dissolution of parliament and new elections, but only a day later, parliament agreed to form a new government made up of the Moscow-affiliated Socialist Party and the pro-European alliance Acum.
With this unusual merger, they wanted to wrest power from the Democratic Party, which had previously provided the head of government. The new pro-European head of government Maia Sandu wants to bring Plahotniuc to justice. (Photo: REUTERS) Western governments welcomed the withdrawal of the Democratic Party from government. Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas wrote on Twitter that the move clears the way for the parliament-elected new government and “peaceful change”. The US State Department spoke of a “peaceful transfer” that reflects the will of the Moldovan people. “With around 3.3 million inhabitants, Moldova is one of the poorest countries in Europe.
The government in Chisinau has endeavored in recent years to move closer to the European Union. In 2014 the EU granted Moldova a visa-free visa. Source: ntv.de, chr / AFP “Choice of direction in the area of tension between Russia and the West: A change of government is on the horizon in the Republic of Moldova Southwest Ukraine. The first projections after the polls show a wafer-thin lead for the pro-Russian opposition. In the parliamentary elections in the ex-Soviet republic of Moldova, after the first ballot papers have been counted, the opposition will have a narrow lead.
According to initial projections, Moldova’s pro-Russian parties are ahead. After counting 36 percent of the votes, the socialists come to 22 percent, as the election commission announced in the night. The communists garnered around 19 percent of the vote, while the pro-European three-party camp has so far achieved a partial result of around 40 percent. In polls before the polls, the pro-Western government had led slightly.
The turnout was around 56 percent, a little lower than four years ago. The small Southeast European country is facing an acid test and the vote is considered to be trend-setting. Political observers had previously described the election as a vote on the government’s EU course. The socialists want to move closer to Moscow. It is unclear how the communists position themselves in the political dispute between the parties: “We are Russia” versus “Moldova cannot develop without Europe”: The small landlocked country is experiencing a far-reaching decision. (Photo: n-tv.de / stepmap.de) The vote was overshadowed by the exclusion of the promising pro-Russian party Patria.
The EU, Russia and the US had expressed concern about this. The authorities accuse the party of illegal funding. According to surveys, Patria could have won up to 15 percent of the vote. The situation in Moldova is in some respects comparable to the development in neighboring Ukraine. With Russian help, Transnistria in eastern Moldova broke away years ago.
Russian soldiers are still stationed there, and a pro-Western alliance has ruled the country of 3.5 million people since the Communists were violently disempowered five years ago. “Moldova cannot develop without Europe,” said Prime Minister Iurie Leanca when casting his vote in the capital Chisinau. The opposition wants to hold Moldova’s EU course and is campaigning for accession to a customs union with Russia. Protests at the Moldovan consulate broke out in Moscow because many people there had no chance to vote because of long waiting times. “We are with Russia!” and “We don’t want an EU!” the people chanted. According to official figures, there are more than 700,000 Moldovans living in Russia.
In total, more than 20 parties and individual applicants were allowed to compete for the 101 seats in parliament. Election supervisor Iurie Ciocan spoke of a day without violations. The Republic of Moldova lies between Ukraine and EU member Romania – and thus in the area of tension between Russia and the European Union. The EU has signed an association agreement with Moldova. Russia imposed agricultural sanctions on the agricultural Moldova.
The conflict area of Transnistria, a breakaway from Moldova and controlled by Russia, did not take part in the vote. The region wants to join Russia. The opposition politician and head of the Moscow-backed socialists, Igor Dodon, called for an election “for a prosperous Moldova on the side of a strong Russia”. The communist leader and former President of Moldova, Vladimir Voronin, was still skeptical when casting his vote: “I voted for Moldova’s development, although I don’t expect much from this election,” said the 73-year-old. Source: ntv.de, mmo / dpa / rts “A tank stands as a memorial in the central square of Tiraspol, in the background on the left the supreme Soviet of the de facto country. (Photo: Julian Vetten) East of the Dniester River lies the last bulwark of communism in Europe. At least on the paper, because officially the country does not exist.
It is run by a corporation that could hardly be more non-communist. In order to ensure that his country doesn’t exist, the grim-looking border policeman takes a lot of time to check the arriving cars. Maybe he thinks he has to catch up on something. His Ukrainian colleagues on the other side of the bridge only took a cursory glance into the Volga and then waved the decrepit vehicle through in boredom – just like all the other vehicles waiting.
And somebody has to ensure law and order here, after all, it is important to defend the last bulwark of communism in Europe. When things go on under the scorching Black Sea sun at some point, a simple scrap of paper grants entry into the country that, despite objective non-existence, celebrates its 28th birthday on September 2nd: Transnistria. The country, which is part of Moldova under international law, describes itself as the “Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic” – and is not recognized by any country in the world, not even by its protecting power Russia.
The area is just 200 kilometers long and only two to twenty kilometers wide. If you step too hard on the gas, you are basically over the next limit again. Nevertheless, there is a peculiar fascination from this breakaway region: It is as if time has stood still here, it is said by those who have already been there and call Transnistria the “open-air museum of communism”. In the capital Tiraspol it looks at the At first glance, it actually looks like a Soviet city from the late 1980s: Children play catch under a real Mig-19 fighter jet in a public square, a T-34 tank a few hundred meters away as the crow flies Battle of the Red Army against Hitler Germany in World War II.
And everywhere you look: hammer and sickle – it feels like more than the capital has inhabitants, around 150,000 in number. The shabby prefabricated buildings on Tiraspol’s access roads do the rest for the first impression. The white-blue-red of the sheriff corporation can be seen more often than the national flag in Transnistria. (Photo: Flickr) This is deceptive, because the phantom state is only communist still on or surface. There is indeed a parliament, the Supreme Soviet, but in fact Transnistria has long been in the hands of a single, dominant player with a characteristically non-communist name: Sheriff. “In the mid-90s, things went haywire here,” recalls Svetlana lives in a suburb of Tiraspol, about the situation after the fall of the Soviet Union and the subsequent declaration of independence from Moldova.
Svetlana, in her early 70s, already lived in Tiraspol during the Soviet times and experienced the bloody civil war, which in the early 1990s claimed more than 1,000 deaths on both sides of the border river Dniester, first hand. After the intervention of the remnants of the former 14th Soviet Army, the conflict froze, and anarchic conditions subsequently prevailed in the isolated de facto republic of Transnistria. “And Sheriff, these are the guys who cleaned up at the time,” says Svetlana. On “Straße des 25.
October “, the boulevard of the capital, you have free travel as everywhere in Transnistria. (Photo: Julian Vetten) That is, if anything, half the truth: Sheriff, founded by two former KGB officers, was nothing more in its early days as a “company” with mafia-like structures and business practices among many. Unlike the other “businessmen”, as gangsters in the post-Soviet area are called to this day, the organization drew the population on its side by fighting anarchy on the streets. With success: no one can survive in the long run from a revolution alone, order and security were more important to the Tiraspolis than the establishment of a constitutional state. In the past 20 years Sheriff has built a veritable empire out of the ground.
The group now owns all of Transnistria’s petrol stations, the only supermarket chain in the country, a television station, the mobile phone company, a publisher and even an international soccer club. Without a sheriff, nothing works in Transnistria, the white, blue and red colors of the group are more often seen than the red and green of the national flag. The fact that the group also has its fingers in the banking and gaming business and that the quasi-lawless Transnistria is said to have been converted into a hub for arms, drugs and people smuggling fits into the picture. Due to its overwhelming monopoly in all important industries, Sheriff is not only dictating the economic fortunes of the country, also politically nothing happens against the will of the group.
One of the reasons for this is that the majority of the MPs, including the president, used to work for sheriff: Wadim Krasnoselski, the official political leader of the republic since December 2016, was the sheriff’s security chief for many years the Transnistrians are not under the omnipotence of the Sheriff.
